Let me start off this mess by a statement:
I don't think Kris is The Knight, the end of Chapter 2 is a red herring to make us think it is him.
"But Metal!", I hear you say, "Isn't what we been shown about Kris making a Dark Fountain in their home with a knife match The Knight actions of making The Cyber World's Dark Fountain using a knife?"
Yes, it does match, and honestly, I wouldn't blame anyone for putting the two together, I did it myself too.
But that's the thing:
we only see Kris making a Dark Fountain after the Queen explain to us precisely who can do it & how to do it.
The 3 Dark Fountains before it were all made off screen, and while some theorize thar Kris did make The Cyber World Dark Fountain between chapter while soulesse, my question is: how the hell did this little gremlin entered the library at night, without breaking any windows or at least without 1 single trace of his presence?
I know Kris is a prankster & as been around te town for a while, but it seem mighty sus that he managed to do such a good job while soulesse AKA when he seem like he can barely move around like a zombie, without a soul to power him up, so to speak.
Plus, when Susie & Kris go into the school to find chalks in Chapter 1,
Kris seem to be quite surprised by the mysterious & ominious door that once was the Closet. If he did make this one (and the other one in the old classroom), why wouldn't he shrug it off? To keep up appareance? They already got the reputation of a lonely weirdo! It wouldn't be that out of character for them.
Not only that, but no one in the two Dark World we seen ,seem to recognize them beside Ralsei (who know much, MUCH more than he let on). The Queen as the excuse of the fog, and it's hard to tell if The King did met the Knight or not judging by his dialogue. (He is very eager to beat up Kris though) But what about Spamton & Jevil? Those two know alot about the world than most, even causing both of them to be insane, and both of them does mention The Knight, yet no comment on Kris reminding them of someone. Spamton is much more interested in Kris's Soul & freeing them of their strings (in his....very special way) than anything, and Jevil talk as if The Knight will be someone the party will have to fight. Which considering how his post-violence battle quote mention the Queen & The Roaring ("
AND HELL'S ROAR BUBBLES FROM THE DEPTHS "). Lead me to think that The Knight will be a separate person altogether rather than a member from our party.
Finally, for Kris reason making the fountain in his home - despite Ralsei explaining how it be a VERY BAD IDEA if too many of them are made - , I got some guess:
1) A common theory I saw is thar Kris really want Undyne & the police in general to take the Dark World stuff seriously, yet everytime he mention it, Undyne just laugh at their face & doesn't take it seriously in the slightest. Now, remember at how Kris cut the tires, causing Toriel to call the police to come at their house & then leaving the door open for anyone to walk in?
2) While he did cut the tires before talking with her, Susie talking with them about how cool it be to have Lancer, Ralsei & all of their dark friends basically interact with peoples they know in the Light World, might have pushed them to go for it even more than before. As while they don't show it as much as Susie, it seem like her, to a extent, Kris does enjoy the whacky adventure that the Dark World offer. Beside us causing them to keep interacting with shady peoples like Spamton after he was cleary shown to be NOT trustworthy or fight the devil that Jevil, or worse, then really, there is no reason to stop said whacky adventure now & bring more Lightners into the mix whiel they are it, especially since their first visit caused Susie & Kris to become best pal, and Berdly & Noelle to be more or less cool with them than before. So why not do it with Toriel & Undyne/Napstablook & see what happen?
All of this lead to my final point for this party of theory: Kris ain't evil.
Yes, the're a lonely weirdo who like pranks a little too much and there's definitly
something wrong with them (you don't just rip out your soul and walk around like a zombie without a reason as to why), but I don't think they're evil to the core. While they only becames friends for two days, Kris seem to really cherish their friendship with Susie (
easiest exemple is Susie & Ralsei reaction to Kris drinking Susie Tea), and to a lesser extent Noelle despite whatever caused them to grow apart in the past. (They gain like 70 HP from her tea, which isn't alot, but it's still better than Kris drinking Ralsei Tea, at 60 HP). Kris still really care for their brother Asriel & to a lesser but still strong exemple, their mom Toriel (it's hard to tell in Asgore case), and while their life have been miserable since whatever happened with Dess that caused her family to interact less with the Dreemurr, Asgore & Toriel Divorce, Asriel lefting the house to go to college & them becoming essentialy a puppet for our needs (which they REALLY don't seem to like at all), I don't think they're at such a point of despair that the end of both the Light & Dark World seem like a better alternative to them, at least at this point in time. (Note that I think Ralsei say the truth when it come to the Titans, notably thanks to Jevil remark & the weird valley you go around with the eyes when you first enter the Dark World)
Whatever reason they opened the fountain at the end of Chapter 2, it's probably for reasons that are much more personal, and there's nothing to say that will keep doing this in future chapter
BRIEF, now that I went all over why Kris isn't the Knight, you might be like,
"But Metal! You Handsome Devil! If this isn't Kris who is the Knight, then who it might be?"
Well, long story short:
Yeah, you thought that music I choosed was just for funsie?
AH, YOU THOUGHT.
For real, I honestly think that, atm,
the human vessel we made at the start of the game is gonna be the Knight, who is under the influence/control of Gaster, just like every other Goner you meet in Undertale. (That, or Kris is a vessel, but he isn't aware of it)
Now, here's the thing,some folks, including me once, kinda meme on that everything weird related to UT/DR is related to Gaster. 'cuz it's easy to blame funny egg head man for any pickles that fall on the floor at 4 am.
Thing is though, in Deltarune, I truly believe that Gaster as some sort of major role in all of this mess. From Toby twitter account being hacked by someone who talk like him IN ALL CAPS (note that the first voice in Goner Maker (as it's know in the game file) also speak like him AND IN ALL CAPS), to the various theme in DR who sound really similar to Gaster Theme (especially Another Him, which even reference the name of the file for Gaster Theme, know simply as "him"), to all the easter eggs who reference either Gaster or his followers. (The Man Behind The Tree, the garbage noises on the phone in the dark world that sound exactly like Entry 17, the bird looking dude in the library who was a follower in UT we never seen it's normal form, etc..) Gaster presence is hidden, but can still be felt all over the place if you know where to look.
What's tricky though is that Gaster both exist...and he doesn't, he is both everywhere & nowhere, he has been shattered across time & space, and while he wasn't retcon in UT in-universe, as shown by his follower remembering him. He seemingly doesn't have a physical form anymore. (The Mystery Man sprite hasn't been confirm to be Gaster, in fact, Toby went out of his way to remove him from marchandise who use the Mystery Man design, for unknown reasons) And I think that explain why he is refered by various vague terms by the character & even us (The Man Behind The Tree by Kris, Someone by Seam/Spamton old friends, whoever name you gave the voice in the intro, etc..)
All of this lead me to believe that Gaster is basically forced to use proxy to do whatever the heck he want. He can apparear in some sort of forms to interact with others and/or even to talk to them, but due to being basically a glitch in the matrix, he himself can't stay too long in one place. Again, he is everywhere & nowhere, that kind of **** isn't very helpful in the long term of whatever plans he as for us & the world of Deltarune.
So to remedy this, Gaster use various "vessels" to share with us knoweldge only he know.
After all, while you could say those 3 chuckleshead may have remembered Gaster from when he was still alive.
The fact that Goner Kid (not pictured here) look way too young to have lived back when Gaster existed, and mroe importantly, that with Mystery Man, all of Gaster Follower were once impossible to meet unless you tweaked the "Fun" value to "fun" (or some **** like that, can't remember exactly) until a update did exactly that and made them possible to
rarely encounter them if you were lucky while starting the game/ doing a new game +, which tells to me that all of them are to a extent, are closely linked to Gaster. (Hell, the dude in the middle even say he has a piece of Gaster, before being Thanos'd out of existence)
That isn't how to go that all of them share their appareance with a NPC you encounter normally in the game. (The third one had to wait DR for that, but we did get it!) And that Clam Girl, in the Switch version,
transform right in front of our eyes into a Goner. (of note, she talked about a certain Suzy, that we will one day/soon meet, the player)
Oh and, what do you know, all the follower we meet in UT have now apparead in DR in their normal form at least once, with the only exception being The Mystery Man.
Brief, whatever they know/want it or not, they're all "pawns" for Gaster to use in whatever way he see fit. In UT, their appareance probably happened so that Gaster could make peoples outside of the game know about his existence & get a "connection". (see the dialogue below)
THANK YOU FOR WAITING SO LONG.
AFTER ALL YOU AND I, WE HAVE BOTH BEEN WAITING SUCH A VERY LONG TIME.
SO TO BE HERE FINALLY ON THE VERGE OF CONNECTION
IS QUITE EXCITING.
I LOOK FORWARD TO CREATING A NEW FUTURE WITH YOU.
NOW ! SHOW YOURSELF !
DELTARUNE !
—
An unknown entity before commencing the "connection" at the beginning of the game.
HOW LONG IT HAS BEEN.
ONCE MORE I THANK YOU FOR YOUR PATIENCE IN THESE DIFFICULT TIMES.
YOU HAVE DONE EXCELLENTLY TO PERSEVERE.
DELTARUNE GLOWS BRIGHTLY FROM YOUR HOPE.
NOW. SHALL WE ? SHALL WE GO AGAIN ?
THE SECOND FIELD. THE SECOND CONNECTION.
—
An unknown entity unveils the release of Chapter 2.
'cuz while he wasn't erased from history in UT, with time, most monsters forgot his existence, and without anyone to remember him, he basically was unable to "contact" anyone for whatever he had planned. Thanks to us crazy Undertale fans though, Gaster names is now widly know in our worlds, and thus he can continue the next step of his master plan.
Now in DR, Gaster as been showing his presence in various small way as talked before, not showing his followers & staying hidden in the shadow. One thing I didn't mention until now though is his relation to Jevil & Spamton. Both of them one day meet a certain "Someone" who shared with them a knowedege so great, that it ended up causing both of them to turn insane & become obsess with the concept of "freedom". (Jevil believe he is the only one free 'cuz he know he is in a game, Spamton life as been ruined
by being manipulated like a puppet, and now he want to be free)
Manipulated like a puppet, eh? By a mysterious force that can be barely comprehed from their persective?
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, I wonder who fit that description? Oh right
GASTER...AND THE PLAYER TOO.
See, whatever we like it or not, we too are a sort of great voice from beyond the depth that can make peoples do things they wouldn't always want to do if they had a choice in the matter. ("your choices don't matter in this world") While I won't talk about the Weird Route here, those who have played know what i'm talking about, and even in the normal route, Kris is cleary unhappy to a extent with our control over them. One good exemple is them being unable to play the piano well despite being very good at it, even getting pissed at Susie for mocking them if you try to play the piano in the hospital in Chapter 2.
While we aren't to the same level as Gaster, we're still the closest being that can rivalize Gaster manipulation over the world of UT/DR, we might only have a few "vessels" to control to a more or less limited extent, but we still have our "pawns" in this game to control & eventually "win" the game with. And you know what has "pawns" in it? Right, Chess, and what would be a good game of chess, if both players didn't have atleast, say,
some pawns, a King, a Queen, a Knight? (Note that Ralsei is a prince, Susie is a poweful girl & quite in control, and Kris wear armor & a sword/shield that kind make him look like a knight)
Queen & King, whatever they knew how the fountain work or not, still ended up serving Gaster's little expirement/game, but since they're both "important" character in the Dark World, Gaster couldn't directly contact them without his presence being too well know. So to remedy this, Gaster used the Knight as a proxy of sort. A proxy able to create
Fountain, which only Lightners can make with enough
Determination.
You know what kind of being is filled with Determination if you remember Undertale? That's right,
Humans.
Remember the knife Queen shown that created her Dark World? Look quite
Human, isn't it?
Remember the vessel we made and was apparantly discarded (kinda like the Trash Machine in chapter 1, only to reapparaer with a big role in Chapter 2?) by the other voice? (which is a whole mess I won't thankfully go here) What did they look like? Ah yeah, That's ****ing right,
A HUMAN.
Now, there might a possibility that Gaster is also actually using Kris while they aren't aware to do weird stuff behind our back, but as of now, I subscribe to the theory that The Knight is a human vessel/goner that we made that, altought not used by us, the player, was taken back by Gaster to further manipulate the Dark World while also fooling us into thinking that Kris himself is The Knight. Which to a extent, is true, but Kris isn't our enemy, and whatever the vessel we made is happy with us or their existence or not, like all Gaster Follower/Goner before it, they're now one of Gaster many pawns, and the world of Deltarune is basically a game between us & Gaster who, whatever our choices actually matter in the end or not, both party are going to see it through the end. Whatever it's for good, evil, or just because we can, we won't stop til we reach the end of this experiment given to us by Gaster, and if we have to do a little controlling along the way, then so be it. We're ****ing gamers boyz, we ain't going to stop this game til we get our reward!....even if it cause suffering a long the way.
Annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd, at long last..............
We finally reached the end of this monster of a theory.
Now, again, if you
somehow made it through all this insanity. Know there's still alot of stuff I didn't cover, like The Titans, The Bunker, Ralsei knowing ALOT for someone who was just born a day ago (lots of hints lead to believe he know
the player, and that he may be linked to Gaster too, or the boat dude from UT at least)
Whatever the hell I missed though, I think I wrote enough for today to make a ****ing book out of it, soooo, I let you come ot your own take on what I shared. Again, it's just my theory, no matter how good it is, thre's probably flaws in it, so take all I said with a grain of salt. Toby is a wild dog, and all I said here could be proven wrong later down the line...
Yet, if I do getting one or two right later...well, you know where to contact me.
With that all said, thank you so, So, SO MUCH for reading all of this, and uh...
I'm sorry for all the hours I made you waste.